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• A version of this post ran on the author's blog, centralamericanpolitics.blogspot.com. The views expressed are the author's own.

The Washington Post and CNN look at some of the initiatives that the White House plans to launch to deal with the humanitarian crisis [of unaccompanied minors migrating from Latin America across the Mexico-US border]. Here's the White House press release describing what it intends to do:

That's all well and good but what happens to the families who paid $6,000-$8,000 to have their children sent to the US? I'm not sure what the conditions of the trip were but either they still owe the money (perhaps half) or they've paid for multiple attempts and the returned children will be sent north once again.
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Fox News Latino has an [...] interview with Dan Restrepo, a former chief adviser to the Obama administration on Latin America, entitled Former Obama Adviser: Central America Exacerbating The Child Migration Crisis. Mr. Restrepo echoes some of the sentiments that I've expressed on this blog regarding the failure on the part of the Central American political and economic elites to do their part in helping to transform the region into a more democratic and prosperous one.

Perhaps after Restrepo and Vice President Joseph Biden's pushing back against the narrative that the immigration crisis is all the US' fault, we can now move back to the rhetoric of partnership.

The immigration crisis has been caused by both historic and more contemporary events and decisions, structural conditions and individual choices, in the US and in the region. It's going to take decades of the US and Central America working together (as well as Mexico) to establish the conditions in the US and the region so that Central Americans will not have to desperately resort to sending/bringing their children to the US with coyotes. We have a shared future, and the sooner we realize that, the more quickly we can move to adopt policies that will work for the 21st Century.

– Mike Allison is an associate professor in theÌýPolitical Science DepartmentÌýand a member of theÌýLatin American and Women's Studies DepartmentÌýat theÌýUniversity of ScrantonÌýin Pennsylvania. ÌýYou can follow his Central American Politics blogÌýhere.